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May 2017 Newsletter

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May Pets of the Month

This is Sugar Magnolia, looking adorable as she checks out the views outside.

And Olive is smiling for the camera and sporting our plastic star pet tag.

Both pics were sent in by Paige of Salinas, CA. She says "I've been purchasing collars and tags for my fur babies from you guys for years, it's the only place I trust! Thanks for years of cute, quality pet accessories."

Thank you Paige!

Thank you to everyone who has submitted pictures of their pets! If you have a great picture of your pet (showing off our tag would be nice!), you can submit it here.

If you haven't seen your picture submission in our newsletter, check out our facebook page. Once there, you can see lots of pet pics, submit more and chat with us or other pet fans!

Finally Back Home!

Last week in Turlock, California, someone found a small white dog running loose in the parking lot at the Walmart. The dog looked malnourished and her hair was matted; she appeared to be on her own. The good Samaritan took her to the Turlock Animal Services shelter.

After getting her fed and cleaned up, shelter worker Glenda Jackson scanned her for a microchip and found one. It said her name was Trixie. But unfortunately, like many, many pets found with chips, the home phone number registered in the database was no longer correct. Jackson had another number in the database to try. It was a veterinarian's office... in Bowling Green, Kentucky, 2,200 miles away! After some detective work, Trixie's owners were found.

In Bowling Green, Tammy Crews got a strange look on her face when she got the call and tried to process the news she was hearing. Crews’ husband Thad watched her and started to become concerned.

“I was worried that someone had died,” he said.

It was shocking news: not only was Trixie all the way across the country but it had been two and a half years since she disappeared. She was now 13 years old and somehow had survived -and was finally coming back home.

This past weekend, Trixie flew home and was reunited with her family including 3 dog siblings. After much sniffing, all are getting back to normal. You can read more and watch a nice video of Crews picking Trixie up at the airport on the BG Daily News website.

This is a good cautionary story for all pet owners: make sure your pets' IDs are up to date! A study found that over 40% of all chipped pets taken to shelters did not have correct information to reunite them with their families. Now is a good time to double check your pets' ID tags, microchip data and even our Owner Alert database (if you and your pets are members) and make sure all the info is up to date. Owner Alert members can call us at 800-456-7685 anytime.

Cat Survives in Burned Out House

In the middle of March of this year, a family from South Haven, Michigan faced tragedy when fire burned through their home. Thankfully, the people part of the family were not home at the time, but Chloe, the family dog, and Ringer, the family cat, were trapped inside. Firefighters arrived and did a sweep of the house, making sure that no one was inside. They found Chloe in the bathroom, barely conscious. Chloe was given oxygen and then rushed to the vet. But there was no sign of Ringer.

“Looking for that cat, we picked up furniture, looked around beds, looked in every nook and cranny for that cat,” said Chief Ronald Wise of the South Haven Area Emergency Services. The family reluctantly assumed Ringer hadn't survived.

Almost exactly two months passed before Christine Marr and her family returned to the remains of their home. Chloe, now fully recovered, was along with them. As they somberly and carefully moved through the charred remnants of their living room, they noticed Chloe had found something interesting and was very focused on a hole in the floor inside a wall in the burned out living room. She pawed and tried to dig at the hole. As they went closer to look at what she'd found, they couldn't believe it.

They heard faint meowing so they used food to lure the cat out. Apparently trapped in a hole under the floor, there was Ringer. No one is sure if he'd been down there for the whole 2 months but he was certainly much skinnier. Marr thinks he may have survived by eating bugs and spiders. Whatever happened, they are elated to have him back. Nice work Chloe!

Lost Cat Detection Dog

In a story somewhat related to the above story, a retired police inspector in the UK has announced that his company has specially trained a dog to find missing cats.

Colin Butcher is the owner of The Pet Detectives and has an impressive record of finding lost pets. In his past career, he was familiar with dogs trained to find bombs and drugs and made the natural connection that a dog could be trained to find cats. But he had to find the right dog. It took him nearly two years to find and train Molly, an 18 month old cocker spaniel.